Myrnin's eyes widened. "What ghosts?"
"The ghosts of the people you've killed," Sam said. As soon as the words left his mouth, the spirits were shouting at him all at once: names, death dates, curses. Sam covered his ears, but they did not cease or even lower in volume. Raising his voice over the whispered shouts in his mind, he said, "They're not very happy."
A frown formed between his eyebrows as he processed Sam's words. "So they exist, you're certain?" Sam nodded. There was no mistaking these disembodied spirits as imagined. Myrnin's lips twitched, almost as if to smile, but he seemed to suppress the urge.
"Would you two stop your irrelevant chatter?" Oliver snarled at the both of them. "We need to fix Amelie before anything else is to happen. I can postpone her duties as Founder for three days, but no more."
Myrnin turned to Oliver calmly. "Well then, we have three days—seventy-two hours, if the number has escaped you. All we need to do is find the book that contains the reversal spell and then cast it. In the meantime, I wish to speak with Samuel."
"What you wish and what is being called for at this moment are two entirely different things, fool. Must I remind you that this is a life-and-death situation on our hands—and you want to drop it to experiment on the fledgling?" Oliver's eyes were red and Sam felt a sudden pang in his chest. Oliver was speaking about Amelie with such concern in his voice, as he hadn't when Sam was still alive. He was being so adamant that Amelie be the top priority (as she should be, of course), but Samuel had expected that from Myrnin. Never Oliver.
Sam eyed the man suspiciously. "What do you care, anyway?"
Myrnin was quick to intercede on Oliver's behalf. "Much has changed, Samuel, keep this in mind—"
"She's moved on, boy," Oliver sneered, indifferent to Myrnin's sensitivity. "You couldn't expect her to linger on your passing for the rest of her existence, could you?"
Sam felt himself scowling—a look that crossed his face only very rarely. His fists were clenched at his sides in anger and he was breathing heavily. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Myrnin turn away hastily and begin sifting through drawers and muttering to himself about "the damned book."
"Did you really think your love would transcend beyond the grave? She mourned. And then she found me." The smirk tugging on the corners of his lips made Sam grit his teeth.
"Are you nervous she got bored of you and was so desperate for someone better that she turned to a graveyard?" Sam shot back hotly. "Is that why you're so eager to stuff me back in my coffin and nail the lid shut?!"
Oliver growled and his fangs slid out. "I will only warn you once, infant. And even that is charitable, considering. Do.Not. Test me."
"What could you possibly do to a dead man, Oliver? Are you going to kill me again so you'll have to find someone new to roll into my grave? Amelie will love that," Sam said, recklessly.
The tense argument was interrupted by a triumphant cry from Myrnin. "Aha!"
Oliver and Sam turned to him. He was clutching something small to his chest with a smile on his face. Something with a long, delicate chain that was dangling from his enclosed fingers. His smile faltered.
"Oh, yes," he said, addressing their onlooking eyes. "Well, it's not the book, if that's what you're both looking so expectantly at me for."
"So nothing useful, I take it," Oliver said, dryly.
Myrnin's smile disappeared altogether. "Pertaining to our current situation, I would suppose not."
Oliver's lips turned into a thin line. "Fine. I'm leaving then. You two have a grand time wasting what little we have of it. When you're ready to actually try and help Amelie, contact me. I will be taking care of Morganville during Amelie's absence." Oliver called forth a portal. Before he left, he said, "The life of the Founder rests in your simple hands." He took his exit and the portal snapped shut behind him.
A moment of silence lapsed between the two men left in the lab. "Don't worry yourself over him," Myrnin said, trying to sound consoling. "He honestly has nothing to brag about. I mean, really. I remember back in Germany, he spent the whole night trying to chat up some bar maids by purchasing them copious amounts of alcohol, but instead he was the one consuming all of it and he only ended up crying about his mother..."
Sam wasn't listening. Instead, he was watching a pale figure shift in and out of focus, standing just behind Myrnin. It was a very young girl, peeking out from behind the scientist and peering around his long legs at Sam. She had dirty blond hair with bangs that were long enough for her eyelashes to catch when she blinked.
"Samuel Glass?" she asked. Her voice was quiet and he noticed she still had all of her baby teeth save for a missing one in the bottom row.
He nodded and Myrnin stopped talking. "Sam? What are you looking at?" He didn't acknowledge Myrnin's question.
"The lady told me to take you to the book," she said.
Myrnin spun around and looked behind him, trying to see what Sam could. The child shied away and then disappeared.
"Did you see her?" Sam asked, going to where the girl had been standing.
"Who? Wait—can you see them? The ghosts?"
"Just this one. She wants to take me to where the book is. But she's scared of you. Stay here." A serious look crossed Myrnin's face and he nodded. Sam walked into the back hallway, out of Myrnin's sight.
The girl was waiting for Sam there and her solid-looking body came to stand next to him. Sam couldn't help staring at the two fang-sized holes in her neck. She was wearing a white nightgown that had bloodstains on her shoulder, the side of her where the fang marks stood proudly against her pale flesh. She looked very cold with her blue lips and white face.
"The book is back here," she said, leading Sam down the corridor. She raised a hand to point her finger at a door. "The lady says, 'The book lies within.'" She faded away without another word.
"Myrnin!" Sam called. The man was standing next to him in five seconds, rubbing his hands together excitedly. "She said it's in there," he said, pointing to the door as the girl had done before him.
He smiled, but then it fell away after a moment. "What was she like?"
"She was... young. Four or five, maybe," Sam said delicately.
"And I... I killed her?" Myrnin was watching Sam closely. His features were nearly blank, but there was fear just under the surface that was threatening to break through.
Yes's hissed through Sam's head. "There's no way of knowing."
But Myrnin saw past Samuel's lie. He looked to the ground in shame and hid his face with his hands.
"Myrnin," Sam said, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Myrnin anticipated the contact and stepped back, shying away from the touch.
"No. It must have been during a... a fit. I wouldn't—I wouldn't have done that, had I been in my right mind." He scrubbed at his face. To the air he whispered, "I'm sorry."
The voice of the little girl was in Sam's mind. He is forgiven.
And it was like a loud, final breath when she left. A faint swirl of wind and she was gone.
"I felt it," Myrnin said, looking around in wonderment. "Can you see her?"
Sam shook his head. "She's gone."
Myrnin nodded slowly. In another moment, he shook away the haunted look on his face and stepped forward to open the door that the book was allegedly behind. "By the way, Samuel," he said, his tone lighter, "I would love to give you an examination to determine your... current situation."
"Focus," Sam forced himself to say; he wanted to know what was wrong with him, too, but they were in the middle of something.
They entered the room and it was very messy. Nearly the entire floor was covered with books or trinkets or articles of clothing. On the far side, beyond the chaotic mess that was laid out before them, were several large trunks, open and overflowing with clothes.
Out of the corner of Sam's eye, he saw a woman appear. She was able to shift into existence in one simple flicker rather than the girl from before. Before Sam could react and turn his head to her, her strong voice rang in his mind.
Do not look at me; it will draw attention to yourself. He noticed her prominent English accent, refined and scholarly.
She crossed the room and went to a trunk on the far left. Sam couldn't help but stare. She was wearing a prim Victorian dress in deep purple velvet and her hair was pulled back in an intricate bun. Locks of her dark brown hair had fallen out of it, framing her face and working to soften her sharp features. The collar of her dress was very high and at her throat where the collar parted slightly, Sam saw she wore a strange necklace.
Myrnin had already gone to work on searching through the piles of things on the floor and didn't notice Sam's strange behavior.
The woman beckoned him over and Sam went to her.
"When the laboratory was first built, Myrnin made the addition of many trap doors without anyone's knowledge." She pointed to the chest full of outfits. "Move aside this one and you will find one such example of Myrnin's genius."
"Who are you?" Sam made the mistake of asking. Myrnin's head snapped up and he stood next to Sam.
"That's a chest of my old things," Myrnin said to Sam's relief. He must have thought that Sam was talking to the trunk; Myrnin spoke to inanimate objects on occasion. "This was my luggage as we traversed the sea from England to Spain." The woman flickered out of sight after casting a fearful kind of look toward Myrnin.
Sam looked around the edges of the old leather container and found a strange seam in the cement floor. This must be the trap door.
"What's this?" Sam asked, feigning ignorance. Myrnin went to his side and crouched down, running his fingers along the break in the stone. His eyes widened and something behind them sparked.
"Of course," he muttered to himself. Myrnin pushed the trunk out of the way. Sam saw it was a square about three feet long by three feet wide. A cleverly crafted hand hold was in the center so as to lift the door with ease. Myrnin removed the slab of cement and the sound that resulted was similar to that of a lid sliding off a tombstone. It revealed a wooden ladder leading down into darkness. And some kind of presence that was trying to pull Sam down into its arms.
Myrnin peered into the entrance and then pointed excitedly. "There," he said. "That's my stack of my most treasured books. It must be in there."
Sam squinted into the dark as well but was met by a wall of pitch black, save for some things glittering from below, causing Sam to lose his perception of depth. "I can't see a thing," he admitted.
Myrnin laughed. "No, really," he said, still pointing, "it's right there."
"I'm telling you, I can't make out anything down there," Sam said, his gaze falling on Myrnin.
He looked away from below and his eyes focused on Sam. He narrowed his eyes and then took Sam's chin in the small of his fingertips. "Oh my," he said.
"What?" Sam asked anxiously when he did not elaborate.
"Your pupils," Myrnin went on, curiosity in his voice, "they're dilated like a humans."
A frown took over Sam's features as he processed this information. He could touch silver and he no longer had powerful vision? He also realized that he'd had no desire to feed after Amelie raised him.
"I'm not a vampire," Sam said just as Myrnin seemed to come to this conclusion as well.
"Yes, but you're not human. Otherwise, I'd be able to hear your heart. Neither or, it would appear. Then what are you, I wonder." Myrnin released Sam. "Well, there are light bulbs down here that will help you see. Wait a moment."
Myrnin jumped down into the room and landed on something that clinked together—something metallic. A light clicked on and the sight below gave Samuel pause.
The entire floor of the basement was covered in gold coins and they glinted and sparkled in the light. Sam climbed down the ladder and was then standing on probably more money than he had ever seen in his entire life. And the feeling that had pulled him down here had toned down to a kind of hum that made Sam feel content despite everything. How odd. He shook it off.
"What in the world, Myrnin?" he asked as he looked around at all of the coins. There was another stack of books in the corner and Myrnin had gone to them, entirely uninterested by the gold.
"Hm?" he asked, looking up from the book he was flipping through. "Oh. I forget most people haven't seen this amount of wealth in once place."
"Where did you get it all?"
"Here and there," Myrnin replied, returning to the books. "Most of it was from King Richard. I was his court alchemist for several years and he desperately wanted a cure for the imminence of death. Consequently, he was willing to pay ridiculous amounts for me to remain in his castle and find the Elixir of Life for him."
The feeling of needing to be here was back, but now that Sam was standing in its embrace, he didn't know what else he could do to sate this strange desire to be close to it—whatever it was. It felt pure. It felt... powerful. Glorious, even. Sam shook his head and rubbed his eyes. For some reason, he thought that the gold may have a part in this, but he didn't question it any further. He would tell Myrnin about it later.
"I haven't a need for money," Myrnin went on. "It's such a...mortal thing to need." He picked up another book and opened the front cover. A flattened miniature bouquet of flowers fell out and Myrnin looked down in surprise. His eyes widened and he went back to the pages, thumbing through them quickly. "Found it!"
"You did?" Sam asked.
"Yes, come look." Sam went over to Myrnin and the man pointed to the page he was holding the book open to. To Sam, it looked like a recipe: ingredients on the top and instructions on the bottom. Of course, the words were in Latin so Sam could not read them. "yes, and I have all of the necessary components save the wild strawberries."
"Wild strawberries?" he repeated. Myrnin nodded, looking thoughtful. "There should be some in the backyard of the Glass House."
The light shone in Myrnin's eyes again. "Really? No one planted them, you're sure?"
"They've been there before anyone in my family can remember. I know it used to be more common in Morganville when it was founded. I just hope Michael hasn't pulled them up."
Myrnin's phone rang then. He took it out of his pocket, gave the screen a quick glance, and then put it to his ear. "Yes, Claire?"
Claire? So she was still here?
Sam couldn't hear Claire's reply, but Myrnin responded with, "No, I don't need—well, actually I do. I do. Yes, I would like you in the lab today. There's been an... interesting development and I would like you to observe." He paused, listening intently. "Coffee and doughnuts would be lovely. Oh, and get some for Samuel as well." Myrnin took the phone away from his ear and pressed the mouthpiece against his chest. "How do you take your coffee, Sam?"
Sam had to think back and he struggled to remember his own personal preference. "Um, one creamer."
"One cream for Mister Glass, please." Whatever Claire said made Myrnin smile. "Samuel Glass, yes." Before Claire could protest, Myrnin hung up on her and grinned at Sam. "Her reactions are always priceless."